Love, the Universe, and Other Unimportant Things
by jevonne
Summary: Featuring two madmen in a funny blue box, unrequited love, and Jack the Ripper.


"Listen here, Sherlock is driving me absolutely mad. He almost _shot me_ this morning, and if that isn't enough to concern you then so be it, but mark my words, Mycroft Holmes, I will forward my therapy bill to you!"

John Watson, thoroughly put-out and quite frankly pissed to the utmost degree, hung up with a vengeance on Mycroft's answering machine. He had to admit to liking the elder Holmes at least a bit on the best of days, but today was certainly no such day. Today, John was quite sure someone would die when he got back to the flat— he or Sherlock, whichever one drove the other insane fastest.

Gathering his coat with a grumble on his breath, John flicked off the light in his office at the surgery (new job, going well since he hadn't tried to date any of his bosses yet) and made for the door. Quite suddenly he was stopped dead by a very distinct sensation of _You've forgotten something important_. It drove him to turn back to the room, where he looked but saw nothing obvious that he needed. Odd. Mouth lilted in a slight frown, he headed back for the door and was again accosted by an intense feeling of forgetfulness. He lifted his coat with incredulity and shook it, hearing his keys jingle in the pocket. Coat. Keys. That was all he needed. He hadn't forgotten anything. With a huff, he stepped resolutely out and turned to lock the door.

Then he saw it. Peeking from beneath the sleeve of his jacket was a message scrawled in pen:  
_TURN AROUND_

"The hell...?" He had no memory of writing it, but the skin beneath the ink was red with the pressure of the pen-tip, so it was fresh— and the pen was still in his hand. Oh. Okay, not good. His slight concern became honest-to-God terror, adrenalin hitting him as if someone had just jumped out and given him a good scare, but he was entirely alone.

Wasn't he?

John peeked over his shoulder and the bottom dropped out of his stomach, a sensation he associated with being shot, seeing Sherlock throw himself from the roof of St. Bart's, and particularly bad breakups— but this was something entirely different.

A monster stood in the hall in a starched suit, reaching for him.

"Shit!" John staggered back and began to scrawl a note on his hand, then threw a glance backward to make sure there wasn't another one behind him—

Strange. Had he forgotten something? He shook his coat, heard the keys jingling and frowned. He had all he needed. With a sigh he went to lock the door, brows raising when he noticed something on his hand.

Beneath _TURN AROUND_, the skin said, _RUN_.

Hardly breathing, John turned.

"Shit!" He leapt away from the creature, hand groping blindly for the gun he didn't have. "G-get back!" He brandished the pen at it (like that would do anything) and felt a shudder overcome him as it advanced a creeping step, three-fingered hand outstretched. "Wha-What the hell are you!"

"_We are the Silence_," it whispered.

"Right! Good," John nodded, resisting the urge to look away. He was reeling, but he knew if he broke eye-contact, he'd forget it again. "Why are you here?" It edged closer to him, the lights around it beginning to flutter.

"_Where is the Doctor_?"

"Well there's— lots of doctors here—"

"_You have already said this. Where is the Doctor_?"

Already said this? Surely he hadn't— but wait, he had. He remembered, now, seeing it when he first left the office, then running back for the phone and forgetting, writing the first warning, telling it that whatever it did to him, he had a friend that would find out—

"_Where is the Doctor_?" it asked again, and every light went out, save the one directly above John, leaving only the barest edges of the monster's form visible. His mind scrambled after some kind of purchase on logic, some explanation as to what in God's name was even happening, but what was there to explain this that he wanted to believe? Was it a demon? An alien? Could he actually consider the reality of any of this?

"_Where is the Doctor_?"

"Which doctor? I don't..." Oh, stupid. It must mean _him_, not that that was any more comforting. "I'm a doctor, Dr. Watson—"

"_We know you, John, and you are insignificant. Where is the Doctor_?"

"Okay, sorry, but I don't understand, I'm just a little confused here— Oi, what-what the hell are you—"  
Electricity cracked the air and John felt the breath leave him, sucked from the point on his chest where the charge hit. There was a moment of blinding pain and a vague thought of, "Oh God, I'm dying," before oblivion overcame him.

John awoke yelling.  
He clutched madly at his shirt as if he could reach his sputtering heart, gulping for air just to be sure his lungs would function. With an attempt to remember what had happened he found his mind despairingly blank— there'd been an attack and from the feeling of things he'd been knocked out and possibly beaten or tazed, but he had no idea how any of it had happened. A quick search proved nothing removed from his person, so not a robbery. Maybe a disgruntled criminal? Whoever they were, they hit him pretty hard.

He rose to his feet, allowing the wall to support him, and went for his mobile. No battery. Grimacing, he limped into his office and collapsed into his chair. The digital clock on his desk was flashing 5:37 (so the power had gone out five hours and thirty-seven minutes ago; was that when he'd been attacked?) and the analog clock on the wall read roughly 1:45. _Gotta call Sherlock,_ his mind told him, and he accepted the command with an unthinking grab for his desk phone. No dial tone. He frowned. Still too drowsy to do any serious thinking, he was mildly unsettled by the lack of working phones, but chose to overlook it until he could get someplace safe. He didn't want to go outside at this hour in his state, but if he could get into his boss's office, he'd be able to use the computer there to email Sherlock. It was a start, at least.

It took John a moment to get his legs back and a few moments more to get into his boss's office (if Sherlock had taught him anything, it was that a strong paperclip a will of iron could get you nearly anywhere), and once he was in, he relocked the door immediately. He made certain all the blinds were drawn, booted the computer, sighed with relief at finding it unprotected by a password, and opened his email. Just as he went for the 'Compose' tab, his eye caught a string of messages with the same subject: _New comment on your post, "—"_

That was odd. He was accustomed to getting email notifications about comments on his blog, but he didn't have any entries titled "—". Brow knitted, he opened a second tab and pecked in the URL to his journal. The most recent entry was, surely enough, titled "—", and the body read,

_Doctor, if you see this, come NOW  
-SH_

"Good God, Sherlock, what have you gotten into?" John grumbled, fairly certain that his flatmate had gone and shot himself in the foot or something equally ridiculous. Clicking back to his email, he fired off a concise message (_Passed out but Im OK, phone dead. Whats happening?_) and sat back in wait. A few minutes slipped by before he refreshed the page and found a reply: _Baker Street, come immediately –SH_

Cursing what was beginning to look like a lifetime of traipsing across London at Sherlock's request, John did a quick search for online taxi booking, secured a cab, and exchanged a few frustrating messages with Sherlock as he waited.

_Whats on? you ok?_

_Fine. Get here. SH_

_Im waiting on a cab. b there soon_

_Where are you!_

_still waiting! BE PATIENT_

_Patience is boring. Are you here yet!_

_jesus you're insane. cab just pulled up, be there in 15 mins_

_Good God, just HURRY_

John shut down the computer and slipped out of the office, rushing for the front door despite a fairly strong conviction that his attacker was long-gone. He felt like a kid alone in the house at night: the monsters in the dark weren't real, but he ran from them all the same.  
The cabbie waiting at the curb gave him an odd sort of look when he burst with a slight bit of panting onto the street corner, so he did his best to appear normal as he locked up shop, but was still regarded with a hint of suspicion in the rearview mirror most of the way to 221B.

"Odd night," John speculated, receiving only a grunt in reply. The red stroke of the Speedy's sign appeared on the street and John readied his fare money, which he paid when the taxi stopped. As the moan of the cab's engine faded down the road, John stood on the doorstep with a strange sort of tugging in his gut telling him something was quite wrong.

_You've forgotten something_, it murmured. _Turn around and remember_.  
John turned and was promptly barreled into by a mess of spaghetti-like limbs with a bow tie.

"Oh! Terribly sorry," said the man in the sort of voice people usually reserve for speaking to ten year olds. He produced a deer stalker from inside his jacket, donned it, inquired, "Odd night, isn't it?" and vanished promptly through 221B's front door, leaving John blindsided on the porch.

"The hell?" He spun and flung open the door— only to find another door directly behind it. A blue one with little windows. He blinked. Closed 221B. Opened it again. The funny blue door was still there. Questioning his life in general, he reached for one of the handles and, heeding the direction of the plaque beneath the windows, pulled.

Light and smoke spilled out, momentarily blinding and choking John. When he regained his abilities to see and breathe, he found his face a hairsbreadth from that of the man in the deerstalker and the bowtie.

"Oh, of course!"  
John was nearly hit in the chin by Bowtie-man's hand, which flew upwards to smack its own forehead. The same hand then made a wild pointing gesture, accompanied by an exaggerated raise of Bowtie-man's brow and an overly-adamant smile. "You must be Dr. Watson! Hello, I'm The Doctor." He extended his hand and whipped it back before John could even think what to do with it. "Not a doctor like you of course, but that's fine, we'll get along swimmingly— Morstan!" At this alarmingly loud call, a petite blonde woman in an enormous multicolored scarf appeared from behind what looked like a very large control panel. Leaning around The Doctor, John took in for the first time what was behind the blue door: the whole thing looked alive, lit by bright colors and adorned entirely in moving parts. It was also cavernous, perhaps four times 221B's modest parlor.

"Bloody hell," John heard his own astonished voice, "what have you done to our flat?"

Without answering, the Doctor grinned and said to the woman, "Morstan, hang onto your scarf. You're about to meet Sherlock Holmes."


End file.
